Shadows of Esteren: The Gaes of Tulg

Darkness lies within

Omens VI / Cathbad's Bane I

Shadows over Dearg, chapter 2 / Caravan, chapter 1

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Mab convinced Alsandair to give her an hour, and everybody else to keep it quiet. The accusation actually happened in private. Before Alsandair began with his rant, Sir Argan announces that he had been mind controlled, and that the cloud has lifted. Everyone went to his room to get the chalice and it wasn’t there. A search of likely locations was done, and in Gwynn’s room we found the chalice box, with a heart in it — with a theory that maybe the demon’s heart was transformed to a chalice and transformed back. Sir Argan’s affliction wasn’t made public. The local demorthen is going to check on him. The Chalice was decreed as ‘cleansed’ and Mina’s name was cleared as well. Dame Gwendolyn officially died fighting the Feonds.

The party completely destroyed the summoning circle, and was able to keep with Sir Argan’s permission the cold iron circle — but Brother Adso says that it must be purified before it can be used. However, he both knows of a place where it can be purified along the way to Faeril, and can also do the purification ritual himself now.

The PCs set out from Dearg to Faeril as part of a caravan. Before we left Dearg, Mab had Ælfric add a hidden panel into the carriage that only they two know about. On leaving Dearg, the group ran into Kavan Mac Dougal, who was just setting up a caravan already heading to Tulg Naomh. Mab basically swept in and took over the caravan, Kavan being a bit of a pushover. Also important is Sid, the Varigal (a professional caravan guide), gets along well with Alsandair. He’s knowledgable about the ways of caravans and how things should be run, but Mab still looks to us for advice as well. Also Mirna and Masha, long-time friends of Mina, are acting as bards for the caravan. Also Liam, an old friend of Æfric’s, who had gone to university with me… but didn’t graduate. He just didn’t have what it took to cut it as a magientist. He’s a pretty good scholar (high Erudition), just not focused on mergence (low Magience). He’s paid to be a rider on the caravan and is willing to drive my cart during the day if I allow him to use it (supervised) at night. Ean is well-known, standoffish and an outsider, a hunter for the caravan. Ciany Lorn was previously known to some of us (an old friend of Mab). The group traveled from Dearg to Faeril without much incident. In Faeril, the PCs had to do a little work to be let into the city at all — our reputation had preceded us (bad things happening everywhere we go). The Hilderen knight, Dame Eubha, in charge was of the opinion that we had a dark cloud following us. Squire Tasgall, her squire, has been helpful but we haven’t done a great job of using him.

We heard that a horse had gone missing, and fearing Feondas activity, went to check on the horse. There was also a demorthen that had taken up residence in the noble’s manor, and hadn’t been seen for a while, so the groups split. The manor PCs looked at it from outside and found a giant slime trail that had gone over the wall and trailed off into the forest — went back for backup (and salt). The farmer, Laomann, believes himself (falsely) to be a magientist. He had a slime trail on his own land, which got bigger as it went through the stables. Airgead has a stone that allows him to sense Feondas, and confirmed that it was Feondas activity. Although we know Faeril as a logging town because that’s locally true, nationally it’s a known for salt production.

The PCs went to Squire Tasgall, who said we have to take it to Dame Eubha. We gather a group to go after the slime Feond and hit the road.